The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

16

Mr. Fogg, as soon as he landed in San Francisco, learned that the next train for New York City left at six in the evening that day. He took rooms for the three in a hotel and then started out for the British consulate with Aouda. He had gone only a few steps from the hotel when he ran into Passepartout. The Frenchman was waiting for him so he could get permission to buy some Enfield rifles and Colt revolvers. Verne says the Frenchman wanted them in case they were attacked by Indians en route to the American Midwest. Both he and Fogg, of course, were thinking more of the defense against the Capelleans than against the Sioux or Pawnee.

A few paces further on, Fogg met, “by the greatest chance in the world,” Mr. Fix. The detective pretended great surprise. Could it be true that he and Mr. Fogg had crossed the Pacific Ocean together and not once encountered each other? Since Fix owed Mr. Fogg so much, he would like to accompany him. Could he go with him on his tour of this pleasant American city, so agreeably Old-Worldish in many aspects?

Mr. Fogg said that he would be honored, and Fix went with the two. On Montgomery Street, the three ran into a great crowd. Every place was jammed with people yelling and screaming slogans and carrying big posters and flags.

“Hooray for Camerfield!”

“Hooray for Mandiboy!”

Fix said that it was a political meeting and hence to be avoided. Americans got violent when they encountered opposition to their political beliefs, and the two parties were out in force today. Mr. Fogg may have thought that the same could be said for Englishmen-and it was true in those days-but he did not say so. Instead, he made another of his classical remarks.

“Yes, and blows, even if they are political, are still blows.”

Shortly thereafter, a fight did break out. The three British subjects found themselves caught between the Camerfieldians and the Mandiboyans. Most of these were armed with canes loaded with lead or billies, and a few had revolvers. Fists, canes, billies, cudgels, and booted feet were used vigorously and, often, indiscriminately. The trio was standing on top of a flight of steps at the street’s upper end but found this position no guarantee of safety. The tide of ruffians swept them off the steps.

Fogg used his fists to protect Aouda. A large muscular chap with a red face and an even redder beard aimed a blow at Fogg. Fix stepped in and took the fist. His knees gave way, along with his silk hat. He staggered back up onto his feet but with glazed eyes. He was destined to carry a large lump on top of his head for the next few days.

“Yankee!” Fogg said, looking contemptuously at the red-bearded rogue.

“Englishman! We’ll meet again!”

“When you please,” Fogg said.

“What is your name, sirrah?” the American said.

“Phileas Fogg. And yours?”

“Colonel Stamp Proctor.”

The avalanche of bodies stormed by. Fogg thanked the detective for his noble interpositioning. Neither was badly hurt, though the clothes of both looked as if they had jumped off a train going at sixty miles per hour. Aouda was, if not untouched, unbruised.

The three repaired to a tailor shop. One hour later, they were back at the hotel in new clothes. On the way, Fogg considered the incident with the colonel. Perhaps he was only a Frisco bully. But that name, Stamp Proctor! Could he be the Capellean proctor, the supervisor, the monitor, of the U.S.A. for the enemy? Did the Stamp indicate that another of his functions was the assassination, the stamping out, of Eridaneans? Or was his name only a coincidence? Nemo had said that the Capelleans were abandoning the old custom of using functional names. Nemo, however, was a liar. And even if he were telling the truth, the reform might not yet have been put into effect.

He told himself that he should not have taken a tour but should have remained, as was his habit, in his room. And why had he broken this habit? He had wanted to show Aouda the city.

Fogg also thought about Fix. He had rushed in to take the blow meant for him. Why would he do this if he were a Capellean? Was it to convince Fogg that he was only an Englishman who would defend another Englishman in Yankeeland? This did not seem likely. If Proctor were a Capellean, he would not want his efforts frustrated. Fix, in fact, should have helped Proctor.

But he had not. On the contrary.

After dinner, Fogg said to Fix, “Have you seen this Proctor again?”

“No.”

“I will return to America to find him,” Fogg said calmly. “It would not be right for an Englishman to permit himself to be treated in that manner without retaliation.”

Fix smiled but did not reply. Fogg wondered what he was thinking. As for his speech, it was true enough. After this was over, he would be back looking for the colonel. As an Englishman, he would have done it for the sake of honor. As an Eridanean, he would be doing it to eliminate a Capellean – if Proctor were such.

There were 3,786 miles of railway to be traversed from San Francisco to New York City. Between the ocean and Omaha, Nebraska, the railroad passed through a rugged land dangerous with beasts and wilder Indians. Part of the territory was occupied by the Mormons, a comparatively peaceful people, though regarded by most Gentiles of that time as uncivilized. The train, averaging only twenty miles per hour because of the many stops, would take seven days for the journey. That is, it would if buffalo, savages, storms, floods, washouts, breakdowns, and avalanches did not interfere. If the schedule were met, however, Fogg would arrive on the eleventh of December to catch the steamer from New York for Liverpool, England.

At eight o’clock, in the midst of falling snow, the car in which Fogg and party rode was converted into a dormitory. At noon of the next day, the train stopped for a breakfast break of twenty minutes at Reno, Nevada. At twelve o’clock, the train was forced to stop until nightfall to let a vast procession of buffalo cross the tracks. At thirty minutes after nine in the evening, the train crossed into Utah.

On the night of the fifth of December, the train was about a hundred miles from the Great Salt Lake. Though Fogg was not aware of it, this was the day that the brigantine Dei Gratia discovered the Mary Celeste sailing along without a soul aboard. If Head had trusted to his luck, he would have been put aboard the Dei Gratia and would, on the twelfth of December, have disembarked at Gibraltar. It is true that he would have been held up by a court of inquiry, but he could have escaped. Thus it would have added one more element of mystery to a case that has puzzled savants and the public and originated many false stories for a hundred years. Even the name of the ship is known to most people as the Marie Celeste. This error is no mystery, however. This derives from an incorrect notation in the New York City pilotage record of the seventh of November, 1872. The error was even perpetuated in the archives of the U.S. State Department, and the American newspapers continued to use the false name.

Perhaps the most influential in spreading this error was A. Conan Doyle, who refers to the ship as the Marie Celeste throughout his well-known story, J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement.

On the seventh of December, the train halted for fifteen minutes at the Green River Station in the Wyoming Territory. Several passengers got off to unlimber their legs. Aouda, looking through the window, became alarmed. She had seen Colonel Stamp Proctor on the platform.

Verne says that it was only chance which brought Proctor on the train, but we know better. Verne also says that Fix, Aouda, and Passepartout conspired to keep Fogg from learning that the colonel was a passenger on another car. This was one of Verne’s novelistic insertions. Aouda, in fact, woke Fogg up to tell him about Proctor.

Fogg merely asked if Aouda and Fix could play whist, and they were soon playing.

Aouda, using the cards as code transmitters, asked Fogg what he intended to do about Proctor. Fogg replied, “Nothing-for the moment.”

“Why not, if I may ask?”

“The time and place are not appropriate.”

The train soon bore them over the Rockies through snow. Some distance past Fort Halleck, the train unexpectedly stopped. The alarmed passengers, with the exception of Fogg, poured out. They discovered the engineer and conductor talking to a signalman. He had been sent from Medicine Bow, the next stopping place, to halt the train. A suspension bridge over some rapids was in too ruinous a condition for the train to chance crossing it.

An American, Forster, proposed that the train back up so it could get a running start. If it gained enough speed, it would practically jump over the bridge.

After some hesitation, the passengers, with one exception, agreed. Passepartout, using the logic that distinguishes the true Gaul, asked why the passengers did not walk over the bridge? Why ride on the train, which might be precipitated into the abyss?

He was overruled by all and so rode trembling while the train, going a hundred miles an hour, shot across the perilous stretch. No sooner had the rear wheels of the rear car passed onto land than the bridge, with a great noise, fell into the chasm.

Passepartout, wiping his brow, thought that there must be something in the air of this continent that made all its inhabitants mad.

The whist game was resumed. When the train was in Nebraska, a voice familiar to three of the players spoke behind them.

“I should play a diamond!”

It was Proctor, who pretended that he had not recognized the Englishman until that moment.

“Ah, it’s you, the limey? It’s you who’re going to play a spade?”

“And who does play it,” Fogg said, throwing down the ten of spades.

“Well, it pleases me to have it be diamonds,” Proctor said. He reached out as if to grab the card, saying, “You don’t know anything about whist.”

“Perhaps I do, as well as another,” Fogg said as he got to his feet.

Fix also rose. He said, “You forget that it is I whom you have to deal with, sir. It is I whom you not only insulted but struck.”

Fogg understood what Stamp was doing. He would try to kill Fogg openly in a duel of honor. These were not uncommon in the territories, but Nebraska had been admitted as a state on the first of March, 1867. Did the state forbid duels and enforce the law with harsh penalties? It did not matter. Proctor did not seem to think that legal retribution would follow. Indeed, he was doing exactly what Fogg had expected. That was why Fogg had endured Proctor’s insults and had forced him to come to him. If Fogg won and was then arrested, he could plead that he was not the aggressor.

“Pardon me, Mr. Fix,” Fogg said. “This is my affair alone.”

The colonel said, indifferently, that the time, place, and weapons were up to Fogg.

Out on the platform, however, Fogg did try to talk Proctor into a delay. Proctor sneeringly refused and intimated that Fogg was a coward who, once safe in England, would never dare return. Seeing that the colonel was set on having the duel now, and that he had plenty of witnesses to prove that he had tried to put off the affair, Fogg agreed to exchange shots at the next stop. Unflustered, he returned to his car. Aouda tried to talk him out of it but without success. Fogg asked Fix if he would be his second. Fix replied that he would be honored. Passepartout understood that this request was one more test of the detective.

A little past eleven in the morning, the train stopped at Plum Creek. Fogg got off, only to be told that the train could not delay more than a minute. It was twenty minutes behind schedule, and the time must be made up. Fogg got back on. The conductor then approached the two participants with the suggestion that they fight in transit.

Fogg and the colonel agreed. The duelists, their seconds, and the conductor walked to the rear car. There the conductor asked the dozen or so passengers if they would leave until the two gentlemen concluded their argument. They left, happy at some excitement relieving the tedium.

The car was fifty feet long. Fogg stood at one end; Proctor, at the other. Each held two six-shooter revolvers. The conductor left, and the two seconds closed the doors of the car. After the engineer blew the whistle of the locomotive, the two would advance toward each other, firing as they wished.

Before Fogg and Proctor could start shooting, the train was attacked by about a hundred mounted Sioux. The two duelists were the first to fire against the Indians; they agreed without a word spoken to each other to put off the duel until this peril was over. If they survived this attack, they could resume their quarrel.

As many may remember from Verne’s account, some Sioux boarded the engine and stunned the engineer and fireman. The chief of the Indians, trying to stop the train, opened instead of closed the steam valve. The train was soon roaring along at one hundred miles per hour. This made it vital that the passengers somehow stop the train at Fort Kearney. If the train went on past it for any distance, the Sioux would have time to overwhelm the passengers. Many of the Indians were aboard it now, shooting and battling hand to hand with their enemies, who were indeed palefaces at this time.

Passepartout had been frightened at the illogic of the others when they rode the train across the ruined bridge. But when logic demanded action, he cast aside his fears. Logic now required that the train be stopped in time. Bravely and expertly, since he was an acrobat, he crawled under the cars on their chains and axles. He loosened the safety chains between the baggage car and the tender, and a violent jolt drew the yoking bar out. The locomotive and coal tender soon passed out of sight while the cars rolled to a stop. The troops from Fort Kearney attacked, and the Indians fled. Unfortunately, Passepartout was carried away on the tender.

Aouda, who had coolly shot a number of Sioux, was untouched. Fogg was also unwounded. Fix had a slight wound in his arm. Colonel Proctor had not been so lucky. He had received a ball in his groin which had not only incapacitated him but might result in his death. Through his pain, he glared at Fogg, who coolly stared and then turned away.

Verne assumed that it was a Sioux bullet which had struck Proctor. Fogg records that it was he who put the colonel out of action. As soon as he saw that they would be safe, he had shot the colonel. He would have put the bullet in the man’s head if he had been absolutely certain that he was a Capellean. In any event, he wanted to make sure that he would not be delayed.

As it turned out, he was held up anyway. On being informed that Passepartout and several other passengers had been carried off, he determined to go after them. This meant that the train would leave without him and that he would probably not catch his steamer at New York. He did not hesitate. He could not desert the brave Frenchman, knowing that he would be horribly tortured by the savages. He shamed the captain of the troopers into getting thirty volunteers to accompany him on a rescue expedition. That Fogg offered five thousand dollars to be split among the troopers may have had something to do with their willingness to face the Sioux. And that Passepartout was carrying the distorter may have had something to do with Fogg’s insistence on going after him. However, in view of his character, it would be well to dismiss this unworthy thought.

Fix, be it noted, stayed behind. He did not believe that any of the party would return. He would have liked to volunteer, because this would have removed the last of Fogg’s suspicions about him. But at the thought of what the Indians d id to their captives, he quailed.

Afterward, he cursed himself for a coward. But what a brave fellow that Fogg was! Eridanean or not, he… But no! Such thoughts were treasonable. He paced back and forth before the station house. Should he enter and make himself known to Proctor? Or was the colonel even aware that he, Fix, was a Capellean? If so, he had made no recognition signal. And if Proctor did not know, then Fix would have a perfect excuse for his inaction. Nemo, who had stayed behind in San Francisco, had only instructed him to stick close to Fogg. He was to report on Fogg’s activities when an agent made contact with him.

The train pulled out, leaving Fix and Aouda behind. Watching it dwindle on the vast prairie, Fix suddenly lost his sense of security at having at least followed Nemo’s orders. He was not supposed to leave Fogg for any reason. And he had refused to go with him! What would Nemo say? He knew well what he would say. Unless Fogg did come back, Fix was lost. Nemo would say that Passepartout and Fogg might have used the distorter to get away from both Sioux and Capelleans. Fix would argue that this was not likely. To use the distorter, Fogg would have to rescue Passepartout first, and how could he do that? Besides, it was thought that the Eridaneans had only one distorter left. Where was the other one needed for their transmission?

Nemo would reply that it was uncertain that the enemy had only one device. Moreover, what was to prevent the wily Fogg from repeating the Mary Celeste incident with the distorter now carried by the Chinese agent? Indeed, the Chinese agent may have been killed by the Eridaneans, who would then be in possession of a second distorter.

And this had happened because Fix had not been able to help Nemo on the General Grant. And had Fix been as sick as he said he was? Perhaps he had been malingering. And so on. A fatal so on.

Fix went into the station house. If he had no internal fire to warm him, he could at least get an external fire from the stove. But he went out again almost at once. He felt a need to be punished. He would sit out here and freeze until Fogg came back. At least, until the sun arose. The sun. It was said to be ninety-three million miles away. He had heard Earthlings exclaim with wonder at this inconceivable distance. He had always snickered inwardly when this happened. What did they know of the mindreeling stretch of interstellar space? His own homeland was forty-five light-years away. A man walking twenty miles a day would take four million and six hundred and fifty thousand days to travel to the sun. Almost thirteen thousand years. Yet that was a mere stroll to the corner green-grocer’s for one who walked to Capella.

His homeland? Why did he call it that? In reality, he had never seen it nor had any of his ancestors. He and they were homebodies, Earthlings, in fact. They had always been restricted to this tiny far-off planet. Only the Old Ones could call Capella home, and even those who had come from it were probably all dead.

The original settlers had stopped here because they had thought that it might make a site for another fort. Also, because they had to make scientific survey of this unknown planet. They had to ascertain, among other things, if it held sentients. And, if it did, if the sentients were dangerous to Capella. That had happened over two hundred years ago. The sentients then, and now, were a long way from interstellar, or even interplanetary, flight.

By the time they attained the latter, they would probably kill themselves, the whole planet, too, with nuclear wars or, even more probably, global pollution. It was doubtful that their technology, and its intelligent use, would ever match their ability to create social stupidities. If it did, it would be too late. Or so said the original Old Ones. The mystics among them claimed that man was descended from some type of now-extinct ape. The simian strain would never die out, no matter how far the physical appearance of the human species got from the simian. They were inherently committed to dirt and dissension.

But if they had proper guidance?

If the Old Ones had been able to land in force, instead of in a single scoutship, they could have conquered the sentients. These, guided by the Old One’s superior wisdom and knowledge, could have been set on the right path. But the Old Ones had to hide while they observed. Otherwise, they would have been killed, no matter how many thousands they might have slaughtered.

The Old Ones were just completing their report on Earth when the Eridaneans landed. There had been war, and both spaceships had been damaged beyond repair. And so both forces had gone underground. With surgery, they had remodified their bodies to pass for humans. After a while, because of their small numbers, they had enlisted a few Earthlings as allies. Through infant adoption, secret education, the bloodsharing ceremony, and, strongest of all, the millennium medicine, they had secured the loyalty of their allies. There was also the Great Plan which would make mankind long-lived and happy.

But first, the Eridaneans must be exterminated.

Fix shook with the cold. He was freezing to the core of his brain. The fires were going out. Still, there were enough to cast some shadows. Now he could see, suddenly, without the obstacle of the shadows. He must be frozen through and through. Emotions were dead; only logic could live in this extreme cold. If the Capelleans and Eridaneans were so highly advanced, why had they ever thought it necessary to make war on each other? War was all right for the Earthlings, since they were so retarded. They did not know any better. They were still like baboons. But why the two peoples from the stars?

The Old Ones had said-or so he had been told-that the Eridaneans had started it all. They were not quite as advanced as the Capelleans, not at least in social wisdom. They had attacked the Capelleans somewhere on some outpost planet many millennia ago. And the Capelleans had been forced to fight or become extinct.

The sun rose. Fix became a little warmer though no less confused.

Shortly after seven, he heard a shot. He rushed out toward the sound with the soldiers and found Fogg, Passepartout, and two other passengers marching with the volunteer troopers. Aouda, too choked up to talk, could only hold Fogg’s hand. Fix was happy yet ashamed. Passepartout was lamenting how much he had cost Fogg in money and time so far. Then he looked around for the train and became even more desolate on finding that it had gone on.

Phileas Fogg was twenty-four hours behind schedule.